The main poster event in Paris this year was a congress in September to celebrate the 50th anniversary
of the Alliance Graphique Internationale or AGI. It brought with it a number of other exhibitions like the one
at the Bar Floreal, the Galerie Anatome
and the Bibliotheque Nationale de France
that are all grouped
together here under the heading Paris 2001.

In 1951, five respected poster artists in their early forties - Donald Brun, Fritz Buehler,
Jean Colin, Jacques Nathan Garamond, Jean Picart Le Doux - got together in Paris to form an association
to further common interests and mutual friendship.

Today, AGI has become an exclusive, elite group of about 350 international graphic designers
from 28 countries with a median age of 60 years. Their sessions were closed to the public, apart from
a day of lectures for the students, and so we have to look for circumstantial evidence (like the
expression on their faces) to know what they think and plan.

Raymond Savignac, the master of real street posters, and
one of the oldest and and most popular AGI members
dryly commented "As a group, they are a bit too academic".